In this essay I will analyse the economic benefits of sanitation, the economic disadvantages, the link between a rise in GDP and the access to sanitation in regions all over the world including Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. I will do this by analysing data set curves which I have obtained from a various amount of sources such as national journals, reports and articles relating to this subject. I will be using data sets from the UNEP and carrying out multiple regressions. Finally I will be looking at the Environmental Kuznets model to see whether it applies to this relationship between economic growth and the access to sanitation.
According to 2010 figures, approximately 2 billion people do not use improved sanitation facilities, two-thirds of which live in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. By looking at Figure 1 we can see that it is in the developed regions such as North America and parts of Europe where people have a good access to sanitation, while on the other hand it is the mostly the developing regions such as Asia and sub-Saharan Africa